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Lisbon Connection

I always liked Lisbon. It’s a very friendly and warm city most of the time, even when it rains. Being portuguese myself, even though I was born in Sweden, I began my journey there. I arrived by April’s 5th, taking about 2hours by bus from Ferreira do Alentejo, where I lived and worked for the last 9 months, in Nest Creative Studios, a project supported by the local Enterprise Nest (it’s kinda loose translation, but it’s a entrepreneurship hub located in that small village in Alentejo region of Portugal).

When I arrived and crossed the 25th April bridge (which is named like that as a tribute to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, that happened that day in 1974 and overthrew the Estado Novo government, a one party type of government of fascist and nationalistic matrix), I was saying, when I arrived the weather was quite cloudy and gloomy. It was early, about 10am, and you could see the mist coming out of the river Tagus.

After arriving at the bus/train/subway station of 7 Rios (also known as Jardim Zoológico) I took the subway to Sta. Apolónia, where I met Pedro Fragoso, a long time friend, who’s an artist and lives right in front of the River Tagus. We had a coffee and headed out to Feira da Ladra (which translates loosely as the Thief Market, although a feminine thief (Ladra is feminine while Ladrão is masculine)). This is a very emblematic street market in Lisbon, near Sta. Apolónia. The streets get crowded with people selling all kinds of stuff, from new stuff to 2nd hand stuff and you can find many foreigners, different nationalities, languages and interesting people walking around from street shop to street shop.

My friend is an hipster.

I bought a pair of sunglasses and a new wallet to substitute my beautiful but already worn little wallet. This seller was very warm, when I told him I had to calculate well what to spend because I was embarking on a trip through Europe he told me, well, just take the glasses and don’t worry, when you come back you can pay for it. And he meant it, because I had just bought the wallet and said I was leaving, although I later returned and bought them.

Street seller in Feira da Ladra, Lisbon

Paintings in Feira da Ladra (street market), Lisbon

We ate a typical cheese with a bit of bread while having a beer and I went to meet another friend of mine. João Sousa, who’s studying architecture and took me on a walk (my legs cried out later on) through some less touristic parts of Lisbon. He showed me some samples of architecture and city planning he thinks are interesting. I won’t disclose much of that for now as he’s preparing some text and thoughts to go with the images I’ve made, but I can tell you we saw a small neighbourhood, that although dates back to 1930 is still quite contemporary (and was projected by an Austrian architect – you don’t know it but my father is Austrian as well), then we went to see one of the most beautiful, interesting and important places in Lisbon, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation gardens and the Palace of Justice.

I’ll talk about those in the near future!

The writing on the left says – “I may not do everything I love, but I love everything I do”

Palace of Justice in Lisbon, Portugal

Portrait of João Sousa, reflected.

Gulbenkian’s Garden

I have some busy days ahead and this is just to let you know that my trip actually started. Will keep you posted and develop some more content in the way.

I’m also working with some limitations I’ve set to myself. For instance, I’m using my camera (Nikon d600 + 50mm 1.8) fully manual, and that means that even focusing is manual. I’m doing it in order to get more close to a photo-journalistic approach and to teach myself. It’s funny that by the end of the day it was already coming out much faster (I also had a problem which is, for the past 6/7 years I’ve used canon, where the dials go the other way around).

There are a ton of pictures I want to share with you, but I think tumblr will be a better option for that. Regarding this blog, I’m planning on doing 2 posts per week and I’ll try to develop some thought on some contemporary issues. Keep tuned in. We’ll get back to Lisbon before going to Madrid!